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03 Jan 2005, 18:17

I took the GMAT for the 4th time today and finally made it.
I have not contributed much in the past, but here are my 5 cents worth.

Took the GMAt two years ago 490
Last month 610
3 days ago 610
Today 710! YES I studied full time for about the last 2 months, 10-15 hours a day. I am so glad it is over. I have a 3.9GPA, but I am just not good at standardized tests, they are way too fast for me. I had to guess on quite a few questions.

100 points difference in 3 days! I think this shows how important mental attitude and concentration can be.
Thank you so much for this forum.

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04 Jan 2005, 10:10

Thanks people. It's not the best score in the world, but it was much more than I thought I would be able to get, I was shooting for a 650.
For testtakers, I really recommend using the timeline somone proposed here, I just read about yesterday. I teared an inch off the top of one of my scratch papers and put the
Question: # 1 5 10...
TIme: #76 65 55 etc.
on it and referred to it quite a few times. This REALLY helped me to relax and take the time to solve more questions instead of hurrying and guessing. It sounds like a simple strategy, but as others have said, I believe it to can be quite essential, at least for me it was.
Another tip: The breaks are not strictly 5 minutes, they are as long as you neeed them to be. The test does not re-start until the proctor unlocks your computer, so don't panic if you get sick and have go to the bathroom - just let the test administartor know.
For studying, don't get discouraged and NEVER give up. Find someone close to you to motivate you and repeat this to you when you are ready to give up. I started studying last June, took a PP test after two weeks of studying and got a 560. I was so discouraged, I erased the GMAT from my memory and life until about October. This time around when I got a bad practive score on a test, I just retook the test until I got over a 700.
Yeah, I guess I already knew the answers for some of the questions, however, this reinforced my understanding and helped my ego by getting those 7XX scores, even if only on the second try, they still feel great. Good luck!

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04 Jan 2005, 10:16

I still wonder how much luck is involved in the GMAT, I mean most people have to guess on a few questions and whether you get them right or wrong makes a huge difference. Another tip I have is to take the GMAT at the end of a month and also schedule an appointment right after it (days apart) for the next month. Do this only if you are prepared to do well on the test. In case you do bad on the first test for some reason (lack of concentration, sickness, bad luck) you can retake it immediately. If you do well on the first test just cancel the second appointment. You will lose the money, but if you get a good score, you probably won't care that much.

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04 Jan 2005, 20:59

congrats on the great improvement

thanks for the advice. just for the record - how many perm/combo question did you encounter on the last test and the previous?? btw smart strategy for the retest dates. wish i had the money. don't you get a 80 refund if you cancel your appointment or smth like that?? i thought i read it in the bulletin?? can anyone confirm this??

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no, i am sure the questions are different every month, since you are only allowed to take the test once a month. plus they probably get randomly pulled from a pool of hundreds of questions.

i've had the same questions come up in my tests months apart. I don't think they are recycled as often as you'd think. I've also had different students of mine report similar questions over long periods of time.

congrats on your success. You should be very proud. Good luck in the application process.

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06 Jan 2005, 22:53

So, Ian based on your experience/your students experience what is the best day to take test if you have written test in last month and you want to have the option of writing test next month as well (for taking advantage of the repetition of questions).
Thanks
S

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07 Jan 2005, 02:02

saurya_s wrote:

So, Ian based on your experience/your students experience what is the best day to take test if you have written test in last month and you want to have the option of writing test next month as well (for taking advantage of the repetition of questions).ThanksS

oh, I don't think I can answer that one. I don't know if there's a formula for repeating questions or anything like that. I think it's just random. There are definately thousands of questions the computer chooses from when building a test, and I'd bet that ETS probably groups huge bundles of them together to be used for a specific test. But the computer is definately giving the same quesitons to different people - each test is not unique - so it might give you the same questions twice.

Probably, there are some questions that are given prominence in a given time frame, and that may be a particular month. They may do that to test various problems experimentally. That's definately possible.